1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of access to devices such as chargers for electric vehicles and more particularly to a method and system for using a smart phone to allow this access.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Electric vehicles are rapidly gaining in popularity. With these electric vehicles, charge points, or chargers where the vehicle can charge its batteries, will also become ubiquitous. The simplest charger is simply a kiosk or charge station that a vehicle can plug into and charge. A fee or other access may be required to use this kiosk. In other situations, vehicles will be able to be charged at parking facilities, parking meters and even street lamps. Other electronic access devices such as hotel room locks and the like are also gaining in popularity.
A major problem with a random collection of charge stations is that a driver needing charge may have no idea exactly where to find a charging station that can charge his vehicle using the correct voltage and current, and may have no convenient way to reserve a place or make payments for this service. Of course, kiosks and the like can accept credit cards much like gas pumps; however, there still remains the problem of reservations and correct charging parameters.
Use of the Internet for almost everything has also become very common to many people today. A large percentage of fungible goods today are purchased directly from merchants over the Internet. It would be very desirable to have an easily accessed website that could provide reservation services for charges, including directions to the location of a specific charger and could provide correct charging parameters to that charger. This website could interact with a user's cellular telephone to provide an electronic token or certificate that could be temporarily stored in the phone that could be passed on to an access device such as a vehicle charger, hotel room lock or other access system to allow access and provide any necessary parameters.
Burger in U.S. Published Patent Application number 2010/0031043 teaches a portable electronic authorization method for enabling a user interface on a computer operated by a user to cause the memory content of an electronic device distinct from the computer to be modified. Burger teaches using RFID tags to replace each typical document found in a person's wallet or purse. Burger fails to teach enabling a charger for an electronic vehicle.
It would be advantageous to have a system and method of reserving an electrical vehicle charger on a web page and then transferring a token or certificate to a cellular telephone which could then further transfer this token to the charger to authorize charging.